The Economic Freedom Fighter’s (EFF’s) leader Julius Malema said on Thursday that the real reason behind the moves to suspend his party was to ensure they were not present when President Zuma returned to answer questions in Parliament.

In a statement Malema said his party would be going to the high court to ask for an urgent interdict against the National Assembly speaker, Baleka Mbete – and Parliament – to stop the suspension of their MPs.

On Thursday, the EFF’s 25 MPs received letters from Mbete asking them to motivate why the party should not be suspended from Parliament for disrupting a sitting.

Malema said the MPs would respond and reject the call to suspend them.

EFF must motivate against suspensionLast week the party disrupted presidential question time when its members stood up in Parliament and chanted “Pay back the money”. This stopped proceedings, with the live Parliament feed turned off, and journalists being asked to leave.

Malema had questioned the president, saying he had not answered questions on Nkandla.
President Zuma responded by saying, “I have responded to all the reports as I am supposed to.”

But Malema would not be dissuaded from demanding an answer, “We are not going to leave here before we get an answer … When are you paying the money, because the public protector has instructed you to pay the money?”

On Tuesday the justice, crime prevention, and security cluster condemned the action of the EFF MPs. The cluster, led by Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, said extraordinary measures had been put in place to prevent a repeat of the incident.

The EFF MP’s have until 1pm tomorrow to respond to the speaker and motivate why they should not be suspended.